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Politics is polarising the generations

The political fight is no longer about the centre ground – it's generational, argues Mark Wallace

Faced by spending cuts, public sector strikes and student riots, commentators have begun to wring their hands about the growing polarisation of politics. All this division, they say, is terribly unhealthy, rather stressful and all a bit unseemly. Can’t we just go back to the good old days when everyone either agreed with Tony Blair or couldn’t pin down what he stood for sufficiently precisely to corner him into an argument?

Hand-wringing is certainly in order, but the mainstream commentariat are lying awake at night fretting about the wrong issue. What we are seeing is not really a gaping divide between the political sides. What is emerging is a painful and deep political division between the generations.

Whatever side of politics you may find yourself on, resentment of the middle-aged and elderly is blooming amongst the young.

This is most obvious on the Left. Students promised free university education have stormed Millbank, attacked Nick Clegg’s office and – perhaps most heinously – set fire to the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree in protest at their betrayal by their elders. The very politicians who are telling them there is no such thing as a free lunch gorged themselves on a free academia buffet at Oxbridge – but now they are changing the rules and breaking their word.

The same anger is burning on the Right, though you’ll find no desecrated war memorials or singed Norwegian fir trees as a result. It was the older generation who went along with overspending and deficit finance, failing to undermine the fallacy of “an end to boom and bust”. But it is the young who will have to work our whole lives to pay off the vast national debt.

The young may well be becoming more divided – but you can be sure that, whatever our politics, we are united in agreeing it was the faults of our elders who brought us into this mess.

Comments

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Kieran / February 24 2011 1:47pm

What a brilliantly pointless 'Opinion'.

Gareth Knight / February 24 2011 1:57pm

Nice point, I've been saying this for years. If you want to see the most obvious sign of this, look at house prices. One generation thinks they have a human right to have their house increase in value, having paid £5k for a 3 bed detached house in the 70s, now worth £500k 2 years ago and 'only' £450k now. They believe that views and noise are sacred and that anything that threatens their house value is evil.

The other generation rents well into their 30s and many see them hitting 40 and still renting despite earning upwards of £35k a year. Even a couple on average incomes has no chance of buying a house and to top it off, when house prices fall, the mortgages vanish. They want to see every square inch of green space covered in housing to increase supply and lower prices by around 25%.

Sadly, one generation votes. The other does not.

Gareth Knight / February 24 2011 1:57pm

Nice point, I've been saying this for years. If you want to see the most obvious sign of this, look at house prices. One generation thinks they have a human right to have their house increase in value, having paid £5k for a 3 bed detached house in the 70s, now worth £500k 2 years ago and 'only' £450k now. They believe that views and noise are sacred and that anything that threatens their house value is evil.

The other generation rents well into their 30s and many see them hitting 40 and still renting despite earning upwards of £35k a year. Even a couple on average incomes has no chance of buying a house and to top it off, when house prices fall, the mortgages vanish. They want to see every square inch of green space covered in housing to increase supply and lower prices by around 25%.

Sadly, one generation votes. The other does not.

Bryan Harris / February 25 2011 4:49pm

I would almost agree with this if it weren't for the socialist dogma that pervades the whole subject of socialist led politics.

We still get kids leaving school, brainwashed with Green and socialist tendencies, so no way has "the Left" gone away. The Left/Right divide is as strong as it ever was.

Over the last twelve years labour attempted to persuade us all that they were now of the middle ground. While this convinced many that the left were now "responsible", the falseness of this was apparant when the Tories started to implement similar policies to labour, but very much in a right of centre fashion.

This is really about a leper trying to change his coat to become more respectable. The left have been seen to be wanting so many times, in oh so many ways, that now they attempt to reinvent themselves by making all other parties appear to be the same as they are.

Sorry - it's all left wing rubbish... and we should avoid repeating it.

Mark - No disrespect intended - I agree with you 98% of the time. You bring up some great ideas - Please keep it up.

Glyn H / February 26 2011 5:28pm

Interesting point; and of course George Orwell identified, back in 1948, that the divide was no longer Left/Right but authoritarian/libertarian. And brother was he correct. The authoritarian crap foisted on us since 1997 is legion. Meddling, nannying, interfering combined with Browns monumental and deliberate malevolent financial mismanagement has been a spectacular disaster. He in particular should be on trial for abuse of his public office.

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